Elizabeth George answers questions about being a woman after God’s heart

FORT WORTH, Texas (SWBTS) – During a women-only Grindstone, ladies from Southwestern Seminary and many who were not students heard the story of author and speaker Elizabeth George.

In town for the Art of Homemaking Conference, George participated in the Grindstone question-and-answer forum Oct. 24 to share her testimony and to discuss issues raised by the women.

George was raised in a good home but not a Christian one even though her family faithfully attended church.

“Everything was at church except for a need of Jesus Christ as Savior,” George said of her church experience.

She did not recognize that need until she was 28 years old.

By then she had married husband Jim, who had been raised in a Baptist home. They attended church only twice as a married couple before decisions to skip church led to not attending in eight years.

“We just could not talk about anything spiritual because we just didn’t think alike on it,” George said.

Without any rules, standards or principles in their home coming from God’s Word, George said they were soon doing everything wrong as a couple and later as parents. However, after their two daughters were born, they decided it would be good for their daughters to be in church. Soon, George found herself hunting through the Los Angeles County yellow pages searching for a church they would enjoy.

“That was how I was trying to search for God,” George said.

It was only after studying a Christian book in preparation for a Sunday school lesson that George finally recognized the reason why Christ died for her, even though she had known of Christ’s sacrifice her whole life.

After purchasing her first Bible, George began reading through it, and every time she read a verse about God she highlighted it in gold, going through six highlighters in the process. Those highlighted verses later became “Loving God With All Your Mind,” a book she penned concerning the character of God.

But George also started reading through the scriptures with a pink highlighter in hand so she could highlight every verse she found about women. After living the first decades of her life without God, George said she was ready to learn how to be a Christian woman.

Those verses would become “A Woman After God’s Own Heart,” a topic about which George now frequently speaks to women.

“Don’t resist what God is telling you in His Word. Open your heart. That’s a woman after God’s own heart,” George encouraged.

George admitted that living a lifestyle after God’s heart is a struggle in today’s culture and can only be faced day by day with God’s help.

“I like to think of our days like a blossom,” George said. “And every day we want to know God’s will, we want to do God’s will and be that woman after God’s own heart. … Each day that flower is opening. Every single day He’s revealing just a little more of His will.”

After sharing her story, the women were given a chance to ask George questions. Discussions included the topics of how to remain a woman after God’s own heart even during crises or when one’s husband is not a spiritual leader. Questions also asked for practical advice for studying the Bible.

“I am just so delighted to see the wonderful crop of women going out like an army,” George said of the women at Southwestern, whom she said she hopes will be an army with the goal of changing women’s lives.

Dean of Women’s Programs Terri Stovall also asked George if it is truly possible for women to follow after God’s heart in a world that strongly discourages and often opposes such a lifestyle.

“We must be women after God’s own heart in a world the way it is today,” said George. “We are the light. We have the living Words of truth. Let’s not worry about the world.”

Only through daily meeting with God in His Word and in prayer, George said, will women have the strength to be that light.